Yes, I agree. When young, we get free health care but when old, the state sees any property, thinks you wont need that anymore, and, more or less, takes it. The people with property will be likely to be people who have been paying taxes in one form or another for most of their lives.

You could consider calling the payment to your brother a long term loan to be repaid if and when he comes into money.

Thank you for your reply, this is always such a delicate subject, I quess the best idea would be just to sell our UK house and give my brother half the current value of mums house now, but if we had to use the property to pay care costs later then I would loose my money. It always makes me cross that people who have not any resources, their care gets paid by the state, but thats life I suppose.

I'm not 100% clear of the plan but if your mum gives her house away but still lives there, then the property will still be subject to inheritance tax if the value of the estate falls within the thresholds. The property could also be used to pay for care costs if that were necessary. There is only a possibility of avoiding both these problems if your mum moves out.

If your mum were to simply give money to her children and then survive for 7+ years, then the gift would not be subject to inheritance tax. You need to look at the inheritance tax thresholds to see if the tax is relevant to the estate.

We now live in France and we have a property in the UK that we rent out. My brother lives in the UK and really could do with some finacial help.. If we were to sell our UK house , could I just buy 50% of the property from mum and give the remaining 50% to my brother. This would basically give him part of his inheritance now but how would we stand tax wise ect when the inevitable happens to mum. I am just trying to help him without making everything to difficult.